Blogs present a unique opportunity for school administrators to communicate their mission and vision, expectations, personality and creativity to their community’s stakeholders and the broader educational world. In addition, they can serve as a valuable networking tool and career portfolio. How best can administrators use a blog to communicate?
- Be a role model for using technology. If principals expect their faculty to engage with technology, they should be willing to do the same. A blog is an excellent tool for showcasing enthusiasm and interest in technology. (Colorado State University – Global, 2019).
- Share academic research. Teachers can be bogged down with e-mails about daily life at school. While well-intentioned, sending education research via e-mail may be ineffective. However, on a blog, a principal can share research and provide personal analysis or school context for the research’s possible use. This makes it more personal for teachers and families, and more interesting as well!
- Provide refined accountability. Principals can share their school’s latest academic initiatives. By expanding the audience for these items beyond the school’s internal communication methods, they increase accountability for teachers because more stakeholders will be expecting to see and hear about the initiatives.
- Showcase creativity and personality. Principals are humans! Blogs give them the chance to share who they are, including pictures of their work, books they have read and their long-form writing style. Teachers, students and families like to know who their principal is and blogs give them the opportunity to do this in a more direct way than standard school communication tools.
- Expand best practices by learning through comments. School culture has a strong influence on what we understand to be effective. Sometimes, though, new and better ideas are found through sharing with practitioners outside your immediate environment. Ricky Gervais has shared about how he uses Twitter and his followers’ comments to refine and improve his jokes. Blog comments can provide this same external feedback.
References
Colorado State University-Global Campus. (2019). Managerial leadership [Canvas ecourse]. EDL 550.
Do you have a blog? How would you recommend that principals use them for communication? Leave a comment below!
Talking Points 
Carrie! I love your last point about blogs – using the posts as a reflection tool to improve the school culture and climate. Often we get so tunnel vision in our classrooms, and I would image that principals do too. Thinking and reflecting about how our ideas and values are reflected and received by the community can positively the building. I would (naturally) be nervous as to those very public comments, but that is a reality that happens for principals and is part of the job. Thanks again for your ideas! Looking forward to a great class with you.
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Thanks, Julie! Tunnel vision in schools is real! Beyond expanding perspectives, blogs and comments could offer a “critical friend” role to school leaders and help them see what they might be missing. On the other hand, school leaders may need support for changes or new initiatives that are initially met with lukewarm support from their own faculty. I could see comments being helpful in that regard as well. I am also enthusiastic about our class – it already has me back on my blog and talking to and learning from you! Cheers 🙂
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Hi Carrie! The idea of sharing research with teachers and making it relevant to our own school is enticing – I hadn’t even thought about that particular perspective before. The public accountability is also an excellent point. I like having my students share their work with an authentic audience for the same reason – it makes them take more pride in producing high-quality work. What more authentic audience could there be for a school than the families and community that will be looking for evidence that our actions match our words!
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Hi Carrie –
While thinking about this blog topic throughout the week I have continued land on the ‘not a fan’ side of things. However, after reading your blog I had a little change of heart. I really enjoyed how concise and to the point it was – perhaps it was the layout you chose? But more so, I believe you raised a great point about how important it is to shed light on that humanity piece. The principal at my daughter’s school sends a weekly newsletter home each week, which is nothing lengthy, but in this case I would prefer to read it through a blog. Each week it comes in a Google doc and while the information is great, it does feel somewhat cold. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it has allowed me to think about this through a different lens.
Kristin
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Hi Kristin! Glad you found it useful. I completely agree about the Google doc newsletter. Strictly speaking from a design perspective, blogs are more aesthetically pleasing and more engaging. Another factor I had not considered until reading this week’s assignment for critical thinking was accessibility. The reading highlighted a case study where, “…traditional e-mail and newsletter communications were more accessible to their higher-income families than to their lower-income families,” (U.S. Department of Education, 2016, December 31). Beyond blogging, I am thinking that WhatsApp or group chats might be effective tools for communication as well. Thanks for your comment!
References
U.S. Department of Education. (2016, December 31). Reimagining the role of technology in education: 2017 national education technology plan update. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED577592
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